CHAPTER XXXI.
Ada’s Fate Again Against Her.—The Threat.—The New Home.
Jacob Gray was not acting with his usual caution when he left such directions to the bear warden; but the attempt which had been made upon his life by Learmont and the smith had filled him with rage, and he would, in the height of his passion, willingly run some risk to be revenged upon them.
“There is an ancient uninhabited house;” he muttered, “nigh to Battersea-fields, that I have several times noted. Its walls are crumbling with age. The bat screams around its tottering chimneys, I have marked it well. There am I now to take up my abode until I have wrung from Learmont a sum sufficient to induce me to leave England for ever; and when I do—ay, when I am safe in another land, then will I bring destruction upon him and Britton. They shall find that Jacob Gray has yet a sting to reach their hearts.”
As he spoke, he cast an habitual glance of caution up and down the street, ere he emerged from the doorway of the house he was about to leave for ever.
Some distance from him, the flutter of a white garment caught his eye, and he retreated back into the shadow of the doorway, from where he peered forth, to note who it could be that was approaching that solitary and ill-omened district.
Suddenly he clutched the door-post for support, and a deadly paleness came over him. He saw Ada taking leave of Albert Seyton at the corner of the street. He saw her hands clasped in affectionate pressure. Then, with a lingering step. Albert Seyton turned away, looking, however, many times back again to smile another brief farewell to Ada.
The deadly feelings of hatred that Gray entertained towards Albert Seyton now all returned in their full force, and he muttered curses, deep and appalling, against both him and Ada.
“That boy again,” he growled between his clenched teeth. “How in the name of hell met she with him? In this large city what cursed fate has caused them to meet. I will have his life. Something tells me he will be a stumbling block in my way. I will take his life. Some means I will devise to safely put him in his grave. Yes—yes—smile on, young sir. You fancy now you have tracked Jacob Gray to his lair. You are mistaken. You have found a clue but to lose it again. Ha! She comes. Now, there is some deep-laid plot between them to surprise me; but I will foil it—I will foil it.”
Ada now rapidly approached the doorway, in the shadow of which Gray was concealed. There was a smile of joy upon her face—the pure light of happiness danced in her eyes—and her step was agile as a young fawn.
“Another hour,” she whispered to herself—“but another hour of misery, and life commences, as it were, anew for the poor forlorn Ada. My existence, as yet, presents me with nothing but dim shadows; the dear radiant sunshine of the life which Heaven has bestowed upon me, is now at hand. Gray must see his own interests and safety in making terms with Albert and his father. He will tell all—he will absolve me from the fancied ties of friendship, and I will forgive him for all he has made me suffer. If he be very guilty, in another land he may find security and repentance—nay, make his peace with Heaven.”
Such were the glowing thoughts of the young girl, who was hastening to separate herself from those who loved her, while in her guileless heart she fondly imagined she was taking the surest means of securing her happiness.
Jacob Gray saw her approaching. Eagerly he watched her steps, and when she paused at the door of the house, he shrunk back into the passage, and allowed her to enter its gloomy portal. Then stepping forward; he closed the door, and said in a low tone,—
“Ada, is there anything in this house you value?”
Ada started, and glanced at Gray with surprise, as she replied,—
“Why do you ask? You see I have returned.”
“Ay. You could not desert your father!” smiled Gray.
Ada shrunk back as he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and he could not but note the shudder of dislike that came over her.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I will give you your choice of one or two alternatives.”
“What mean you.”
“You recollect the young man, Albert Seyton?”
A deep blush came over Ada’s face, as she said,—“I do.”
“Well—he had a father—”
“He has a father still!” cried Ada.
“In—deed!” sneered Gray. “You know that.”
Ada looked confused.
“Nay,” continued Gray, “you need not blush. Think you, Albert Seyton loves you?”
“Loves me?” echoed Ada.
“Ay. You have read enough to tell you the meaning of the term.”
Ada was silent.
“Attend to my words,” continued Gray. “I have another home besides this.”
“Another home?”
“Yes, Ada; and in that other home there are domestics which would place you in so proud a station, that Albert Seyton would, in calling you his some few years hence, be acquiring a rank and fortune beyond his or your wildest dreams.”
Ada’s eyes sparkled as Gray spoke, and she involuntarily moved a step towards him. The thought of enriching, perhaps ennobling, the poor dependent Albert Seyton, was delightful to her heart.
“Oh!” she cried, “if you can do this, I will forget all the past.”
“At my house,” said Gray. “’Tis near at hand.”
“I will count the minutes till you return,” said Ada. “Oh, go at once.”
“Yes, but not alone. You go with me, or I go not at all. Come, Ada, quick. We shall be back very soon. You are equipped for walking. We will go together.”
“No—I—wish not to leave here,” said Ada.
“Not leave here? Has your love for this place suddenly grown so strong?”
“I am weary,” said Ada.
“Then we part for ever! Farewell! Ada. I go now to destroy—to burn those papers! Carry with you through life the doubts that now harass you!”
“Why force me to accompany you?” said Ada. “I am very weary.”
“Decide! The distance is but short. The next half hour fixes your fate for a life!”
“Half hour!” said Ada. “Will it consume but half an hour?”
“Scarcely so much. A boat will take us where we are going in half the time.”
“Jacob Gray,” said Ada, solemnly.
“Well—well,” replied Gray, avoiding her eyes.
“On your soul, are you speaking truly?”
“On, my soul!”
“You swear you are not deceiving me?”
“I swear!”
“We shall return here?”
“We shall, assuredly. Then my task shall be to find out this young man—this Albert Seyton.”
“I—I will go,” said Ada. “Let us hasten—but half an hour?”
“Nay, not so long a time.”
Still Ada hesitated.
“You will know all then,” remarked Gray; “who and what you are, you will know; but if you come not now, I leave you this instant for ever! You’ll never see me more! And in losing me, you lose all clue to the solution of mysteries that will torture you through life.”
“I will go—I will go,” said Ada. “Within the hour we shall return.”
“We shall. Come, Ada, come.”
“The papers that were above in the chest, where are they?”
“In my safe keeping,” cried Gray.
“I am weary. Will you not wait until sunset?”
“Not another moment.”
“Then I—will—go.”
Gray took her by the arm, and they left the house together.
A thousand conflicting thoughts rushed through Ada’s mind. The prominent one, however, was the pleasure it would give her to meet Albert Seyton, no longer the child of mystery, and perhaps of guilt, but the proud descendant of some pure and unsullied house. If she let Gray depart now, with him all chance of unravelling doubts and mysteries which, as he truly said, would torture her through life, would be lost. Albert and his father would come but to encumber themselves with a nameless, destitute girl. That she could not bear, and although she doubted, yet, she trusted Jacob Gray.
Ada, when she made up her mind that she would accompany Gray, quite astonished him by the nervous haste which she showed in urging him along, and his naturally suspicious mind at once surmised that there was some especial reason in the mind of the young girl which induced her desire to return to the house they were leaving within the hour.
“She has betrayed me to yon boy,” he thought. “’Tis more than likely that within the hour I should be a prisoner suing for mercy to him, and my confessions in his hands.”
They soon reached the river side, and Gray, addressing a waterman said,—
“Can you take us to Battersea, quickly?”
“Yes, master,” said the man; “the tide serves.”
Without another word Gray handed Ada into the boat, and they were soon gliding swiftly along the Thames, towards the marshy fields of Battersea.
As the time progressed, Ada’s uneasiness became more and more apparent, and when the waterman tended them at a craggy flight of wooden steps that merely led to the open fields, a tremor came over her, and she began to repent trusting Jacob Gray.
“I see no house,” she said. “Whither are you leading me?”
“There—to your left,” said Gray. “Yon low building is the place of our destination.”
“Let us be quick,” said Ada.
With a sneering smile Jacob Gray led the way by the side of the scanty hedges till they reached the gloomy, desolate mansion he had long fixed upon as his next place of concealment, should his lone dwelling at Lambeth be discovered.
Ada looked upon the damp crumbling walls and shattered windows with a feeling of dread she could not conceal. “What place is this?” she falteringly asked.
“’Tis an old deserted farm-house,” said Gray, “in which a murder, they say was committed.”
“A murder?”
“Yes; by a man named Forest. It is called now Forest House, and no one will willingly approach it.”
They stood now in the shadow of the deep overhanging porch, and Jacob Gray for a moment gazed around him upon the wide expanse of marshy ground. A smile of triumph lit up his face with a demoniac-expression.
“Ada,” he said, “you would have betrayed me—you may shriek now—no one will hear you; you may struggle—no one will aid you. This house is your prison—perhaps your tomb.”
Ada clasped her hands in terror and despair. “Betrayed—betrayed! Oh, Albert—” she cried, and sunk in a state of insensibility on the door step of Forest House.